


Imagine It

by zcinmalik



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Peggy Carter, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Multi, OT3, Peggy Carter Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie) - Freeform, Spoilers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zcinmalik/pseuds/zcinmalik
Summary: “I can’t go back without you. I won’t.”[WARNING: Endgame spoilers.]





	Imagine It

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Endgame spoilers. I really needed to get this out as soon as I read them—enjoy!

“I can’t go back without you. I won’t.”

Bucky sighs, running a hand over his face. They’re in the graveyard, the one where Peggy’s body is buried. The same one in which Fury gave Steve her letter.

“Do you think I want this?” Bucky replies. He keeps his voice as level as possible, because he has to be the one to keep it together right now. Steve, though he stands upright with arms crossed decisively over his chest, is also more visibly exhausted than Bucky has ever seen him before. More exhausted than he thought Steve could _be_ without just dropping dead. Bucky needs to be the one who stays calm, even though he feels like he’s dying inside.

“Then _come with me_ ,” Steve insists, in that same tone he’s always used when he was determined to do the right thing and damn the consequences.

“What am I gonna do, Steve?” Bucky snaps. “With a metal goddamn arm in 1945?”

“You’re a war hero! We’ll explain it however we need to—we’ll hide it when we’re in public if we have to.” Steve’s eyes are now wide, pleading.

Bucky scoffs. He knows he should calm down, he knows he’s already losing the control he has been so tenuously trying to hold onto. But Steve needs to hear the truth. Bucky has to show him.

“When _we’re_ in public?” he asks, his tone harsh. “When I’m following you and Peggy around like a lost dog? Where would I _live_ , Steve? How do you wanna explain that?”

“Buck, you’d live with us, of course you would,” Steve says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ll find a way to explain it, we’ll say that we’re doing it to save cash, nobody would question that. And when we get a new place, we’ll have plenty of rooms in it and we could even find–”

“Find me a dame?” Bucky says, and Steve’s mouth abruptly closes. It kills Bucky how innocently _confused_ Steve looks, how much he knows that Steve’s spent so long dreaming about this that he can’t even see all of the problems right in front of him. “What do they call it now—a beard? You know that I’d _never_ do that to someone.”

“Even if you were doing it _for_ them? Buck, what about all those girls you covered for? You really think–”

Bucky shakes his head, turning to start pacing his frustration off as best he can. “Know why none of this matters? Because I’m already _in_ 1945 and every year after that. Getting turned into a monster–”

“Bucky!” Steve snaps, for the first time showing some building anger.

“–and killing people for decades!”

“It wasn’t your fault, Bucky. You’ve _never_ been a monster.”

“No? Then what do you call someone who wants to steal another person’s soulmate? Who wants–” Bucky cuts himself off, shaking his head again, having paused in his pacing. He can’t bring himself to look into Steve’s eyes as he finishes. “Who wants what isn’t his. What he shouldn’t have.”

A long silence falls between them. The summer wind rustles the leaves of nearby trees. Bucky feels Steve taking a few steps forward, but still doesn’t look up from the ground until Steve has taken Bucky’s hands– both hands– into his own.

“Bucky,” he says softly. Bucky finds himself staring into those blue eyes, and it almost feels like a lifetime ago, when they were just two kids in Brooklyn.

“You know that I’ve always been yours,” Steve says. “I’ll always be yours. I love you like I love Peggy, and I always have. She _is_ my soulmate, and so are you.”

Bucky feels his control slipping away faster and faster—his eyes burn like hell.

“Well… you’ve always been a greedy bastard,” he mutters, and Steve snorts.

“I am. I don’t want to choose, Buck. I want you _and_ Peggy. I want us all to found SHIELD together, and keep it from going wrong this time. I want to see her kick your ass while you’re sparring. I want you both to yell at me for being a slob, and I want us to cook dinners together every night. I want to see you touch each other— _God_ , do I want that. I want to sleep with you both and dance with you both and go to dorky science conventions with you both.”

Steve’s hands are warm and gentle in Bucky’s. Tears are running freely down his face—his exhausted, beautiful face. Bucky blinks and realizes that at some point he started crying too.

“It’s not the same time,” Bucky says. “Steve, it’s– we’d have to hide it. And we’d have to hide both of our identities, probably, with this time travel piece, and–”

“I know,” Steve says. “It would be hard. I don’t want to force this on you, Buck. There’s no ultimatum, okay? If you want to stay here, we stay here, and that’s the end of it, and you know I’ll be happy– _more_ than happy– as long as you’re happy. But… I also think this could be worth it. And if you think so too, I–” Steve’s voice breaks, and this time he’s the one to break eye contact, looking down at their hands. A long moment passes.

”We could go home, Bucky,” he whispers, almost inaudible.

Bucky takes Steve in his arms, the weight and feeling of it as familiar as if Steve were still the scrawny kid he grew up with. He holds him, and thinks, for probably the hundredth time, that he never could have guessed that he’d get to do this again—that he’d get to do it all the time. That they would finally, actually be _safe_.

“I love you,” Bucky says, holding Steve close. “I love you, Stevie. Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s eight o’clock on the dot. Peggy sees them both at the same time as they see her, and tears are already running down her face as she throws herself into Steve’s arms. He holds her close, and it’s so perfect that it feels almost unreal.

Several long moments pass before Peggy gently pulls away. She turns to Bucky, who’s standing with a carefully neutral face nearby. Peggy instinctively pulls him into a heated kiss.

He looks almost hilariously befuddled when Peggy finally leans back, and Steve is beaming beside them like a kid at Christmas.

“You took care of him,” Peggy says quietly. “When I wasn’t there.”

“You did first,” Bucky replies, his eyes and voice soft. He reaches out to pull Steve into their embrace, uncaring about the dancers and drinkers around them.

 

* * *

 

 

As Steve rests his face against Peggy’s hair, taking in her lovely scent, and holds Bucky by the back of his neck, a thumb gently rubbing over his skin, he thinks, _I could do this all day._

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: Having now read the... explanation?... of the movie's time travel logic, I still think it's dumb as hell. But yeah. I wrote this under different rules. IDK.


End file.
